Here are some common ways short vowels are denoted:
* Diacritics: Some writing systems use diacritics (marks added to letters) to indicate short vowels. For example, in Spanish, the "acute accent" (´ ) over a vowel (like "é" in "café") typically indicates a short vowel.
* Different letters: Some languages use different letters entirely to represent short vowels. For example, in German, "a" is often short while "ä" is long.
* No special notation: In some writing systems, such as English, short vowels are not explicitly marked and are often determined by context or pronunciation rules.
For example:
* English: The short vowel sound in "cat" is typically spelled with the letter "a", but there's no special symbol to denote that it's short.
* Spanish: The short vowel sound in "gato" is represented by the letter "a" with an acute accent over it ("á").
It's important to remember that the way short vowels are represented varies depending on the language and its writing system.